We went to church this morning at Lebanon UMC in Michie, Tennessee. We used a praise hymnal from 1989 and sang in joy a couple of good old hymns of the church.
The rest of our pics from today are on FACEBOOK
We heard the choir give us some glorious praise music of their own.
We listened to a wonderfully blessed preacher, Jim Rogers, fire us up about prayer and how to. He had to remain seated since his leg bothered him a bit extra this morning but that was no distraction from the Word of God he brought at all.
Jim preaches at two other UMC's on his 3 church charge. Crump, Union Grove, and Lebanon. He had come from Crump before our service at 10 and headed right off to Union Grove, each about 10 miles in opposite directions from Lebanon. he had a funeral this afternoon, though another was bring the sermon, and tonight he preaches the first in a week long series of evangelistic revival messages at Union Grove. Did I mention yet that he is an evangelist who has preached revivals many dozens of times? We loved listening to him teach through his message.
Then we joined the adult Sunday School class under the leadership of Josh, who, it turns out has his mother and sister and brother-in-law (and wife when she is not busy birthing their first boy, Elijah! Well, preparing soon to give birth. She just didn't feel up to being out today) in his class.
Josh is teaching a series on Revelation. Its a pretty straightforward understanding of one of the dozen or so interpretations I have heard, but what most impressed me was his core message of hope for all of us which filled today's instruction despite its literal words of destruction, fear, and horror (ex: imagine a 200 lb hailstone storm). Hope, and love. I don't know if I remember the last time I found Revelation being taught as a lesson on loving your enemies, but Josh did!
Then, praise be, Josh's sister, Paula and brother-in-law David and mother invited us to mom's house for lunch. "Its nothing special, just hot dogs left from last nights picnic."
Nothing special. Do you know how special it is for the two of us, far from friends or family, to be invited to a new friend's home for any meal? And then to be treated to such wonderful conversation, knee-slapper stories and the privilege of meeting all three of Paula and David's children, Woody, Summer and ... starts with an F, maybe(?)... darn all... SORRY F!!! Would somebody from this wonderful family help me out and forgive me for forgetting F's name?????
-Ken
PS: David is a Tennessee Park Ranger at Pickwick Dam State Park a few miles south. See pics from the TVA dam on Facebook. David is one of 5 rangers who manage and live on the 1200 acre state park grounds.
PPS: David has lived here for 34 years.
PPSS: David knew the sheriff that replaced Buford Pusser when he died in his automobile crash.
PPPSS: All I'm saying, which David said to me, was, "Sometimes a local legend gets a bit bigger than it actually was, and different, too." If you want to hear more about this you can ask David yourself but Pusser was messing with organized crime here in McNairy County that probably still exists, so I'm guessing, "No comment" will be his response.
-K
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